For a few weeks now, AAP and its fortunes have been uppermost in my mind. The party was once again fighting for life in the country’s capital, even though it had broken all records of political success in earlier election battles. Two recent books on the rise of the Indian aam aadmi were also on my table to remind me of the AAP phenomenon.
Kalyani Menon’s narrative in “AAP and Me” has both familiar and unique undertones. In one sense, it’s the story of every starstruck volunteer from within and outside the country, who joined the India Against Corruption protests and the party that grew out of it.
Since 2012, many have left the movement in silence or with public fanfare for personal and ideological reasons. Those who replaced them continue to fulfil the overwhelming mandate of voters in Delhi, Punjab and other places.
The book celebrates Kalyani’s unique contribution to the AAP effort and explains why she has never wavered in her loyalty. Her intensely personal story is set across the globe. She captures the magic of her childhood, using French as a second language and skiing on Swiss slopes. Her expressive words are full of dismay at the contrast between the spotless streets of Singapore, where she lived and worked and the dirt and mess of her beloved India.
No wonder she was drawn, like other young persons, into the excitement and challenge of building a better country with an alternative politics. She plunged into the task and learned to handle door-to-door campaigns in Delhi and Bangalore as well as behind-the-scenes analysis and social media tasks. She describes with devastating honesty her surroundings as well as her deepest emotions-her nervousness at making new contacts and doing unfamiliar things, her excitement at seeing what AAP has done for the poor in Delhi and her commitment to spreading the truth of her observations.
Those who wonder why AAP attracts idealistic Indians will find the answer here. It is not right-wing andh bhakti (blind faith), but genuine secular longing for an honest, effective government, which will uplift every citizen.
Jasmine Shah’s “The Delhi Model” complements Kalyani’s narrative. He is as much a volunteer as Kalyani, one among those professionals (of whom many were IIT engineers), who abandoned lucrative jobs to assist the Delhi government to solve the problems of its people. His book gives facts and figures from the most reliable Indian and international sources about what Delhi did and did not do, mainly between 2015 and 2025. And we understand why Kalyani and others who saw what their support of AAP had accomplished for the country will never regret the time and energy they contributed to the party.
AAP arouses extreme visceral feelings among academics, political commentators and even voters. Those who long for a united anti-Modi opposition accuse it of being the BJP’s B team, even though the BJP has blocked its leaders at every turn and imprisoned them when everything else failed. But, scores of supporters like Kalyani have stuck by it through thick and thin.
Others are put off by its strident publicity and willingness to adopt religious imagery. And right-wing bhakts detest it for not toeing the Modi line. Many groups who were unhappy with conditions in India identified with AAP’s call for change in 2012 and felt betrayed when they were told (often falsely) that it had become “like other parties”.
They set much higher standards for AAP and reviled it for not measuring up to their pet ideals. Jasmine Shah’s book now gives us the opportunity to judge AAP cold-bloodedly on intentions and performance alone.
Pinning AAP down to an ideology has always been a problem. It does not claim to be secular, pro-dalit, pro-worker or pro the people of a specific region (like the Tamil Nadu parties) or a specific religion (like the Muslim League or AIMIM). Jasmine Shah lays out the three foundational principles of the AAP government: invest in “aam aadmi” (common folk), end corruption, balance budgets.
Critics of AAP must scrutinize these ideas and judge if the party followed them during the decade when they governed Delhi. My own understanding of AAP’s vision comes from early videos of its leaders singing the title song from the movie Paigam: Insaan ka insaan se ho bhaichaara. This was the ideology of AAP’s founders, the idea of fraternity, which is also one of the three democratic principles enunciated during the French Revolution.
For those who consider these pillars insufficient for a coherent ideology, Jasmine Shah spells out an alternative economic approach, promoted by well-known theorists like Joseph Stiglitz. He lists the advantages of “trickle-up economics” as opposed to traditional “trickle-down” theory. There is force in his argument, even from the purely growth-oriented perspective.
We only need to change the yardsticks for judging economic performance. Development is not the size of a country’s Gross Domestic Product or its growth, even when we measure it at constant prices. Nor is it the computation of per capita income, which is only a meaningless mathematical construct, when an economy also has high income inequality. Growth in GDP and income must be adjusted for poverty, human development and that elusive element, happiness (assessed by the satisfaction and innovation levels of people and their contribution to society).
The Delhi model was built on the belief that improvement in people’s welfare through health, education and public services would increase their creative skills, raise satisfaction levels and make them better citizens. Investment in human capital could thus lead to greater and more sustainable economic growth than traditional economic policy. It would also make for a happier and more cohesive society.
The other planks of the Delhi model which are often glossed over are fiscal prudence and the eradication of corruption. Jasmine Shah and Kalyani write extensively about AAP’s dream of a clean administration. The party began with a fight against corruption. It stopped talking about it, not because it had become corrupt as traditional parties claim, but because its power to combat this disease was taken away by the BJP government.
Let me remind those who have forgotten what happened in 2013 that the first AAP government resigned, when the Congress which had supported it in 2012 refused to push through the Delhi LokAyukta bill at the Centre, which was then run by the Congress. So much for the commitment of these and other Indian parties to eliminating corruption!
AAP is the sole party with impeccable intra-party mechanisms to collect and use political donations transparently and honestly. It stopped publishing the names and contributions of donors only when well-wishers were harassed by the income tax department.
I experienced the close control exercised by party auditors and financial managers when I was an AAP candidate in Karnataka. Donations are tightly monitored and supervised, collected only through banking channels and immediately and openly acknowledged. Limits laid down by election officers are also meticulously enforced.
In the recent Delhi election, the electoral account of Chief Minister Atishi was voluntarily closed three days after it was opened with the public declaration that the permitted maximum amount of Rs. 40 lakhs had been collected. No candidate of another party ever makes such declarations. Those who deprived AAP of the power to end corruption jailed its innocent leaders, who live austere lives, without a shred of proof and taunted them for not providing clean governance.
Voters were fed fake news, even when the crippled AAP worked stoically to close avenues for corruption by taking public services to their doorsteps. And, the Delhi Lieutenant Governor blocked every attempt to deliver rations at the homes of poor families.
Hardly anyone is aware of AAP’s third governing principle, fiscal prudence. Campaigns have been orchestrated on social media about revadis and freebies to conceal the fact that every public good provided by AAP in Delhi is funded from budgetary surplus.
The best-kept financial secret of the country is the solvency of the government that has upgraded education and public health and provided free electricity, water and transport for women without getting into the red. This is a remarkable feat not achieved by any State, not even Delhi before AAP. A clean government ensures full collection of revenues and honest public expenditure, generating far better outcomes at least cost to taxpayers. Amounts saved through efficient governance have been returned to voters as welfare programs.
The popularity of AAP’s schemes has forced other States to copy them. The lack of honest administration means, however, that they are now foundering without funds to meet liabilities. The lesson is obvious: expenditure on public goods is essential, but it cannot be done if politicians and officials have their hands in the till.
From the heart of the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, of which he was the vice-chairperson, Jasmine Shah tells us how policies were framed and strategies developed to revolutionise education and health services, battle smog and air pollution, transform transport and mobility and provide adequate free energy and running water to every colony.
The State has been covered with government schools with world class facilities, run by independent, contented, highly trained teachers, interacting constantly with parents and experts, in which students are trained to be stress-free, innovative, entrepreneurial, self-confident and aware of social obligations.
Those who complain of AAP not being secular should look at the song introduced and sung in all its schools “Iraada hain”, suffused with the spirit of nonviolence and harmony to counter the constant barrage of right-wing communal messages.
The Delhi model includes a network of neighbourhood (mohalla) clinics (which I tried to copy in Bangalore by setting up a charitable trust), providing free drugs, tests, medical advice and referrals. Above all, it seeks an eco-friendly environment, with greenery, water bodies, recycling and sewage treatment and public transport built around electric vehicles.
“The Delhi Model” is a must-read for those who distrust and dislike AAP, because its assumptions and claims are bolstered by impeccable references and data. They should doubt, question and attack every hypothesis and claim. Those who know Delhi well should take time off to visit the sites mentioned by Jasmine Shah and pass a critical eye over the government’s accomplishments.
Those who live elsewhere should validate what is stated here against independent evaluations and the references and reports cited. This is the best way to put AAP on the mat, pull its claims to pieces and decide for yourself, insulated from propaganda and trolls, if there is indeed anything in the alternative economic model, which would make it more suitable for the country than existing policies.
I invite every AAP critic to trumpet the book’s shortcomings and factual errors with only one caveat. Do it after logically and dispassionately examining the claims made by AAP and its supporters.
I need not do it, since, like Kalyani, I too have volunteered and campaigned for AAP for over a dozen years. Jasmine Shah’s account has filled in gaps in my knowledge and improved my understanding of the decisions and actions of the Delhi government. I accept what he writes since it is corroborated by international and domestic research.
The book has not degenerated into a political tirade against the Central government or the traditional parties who wanted to make AAP a political pariah for daring to battle corruption and stand up for the common man. The few closing pages which refer to the persecution of an elected government and the abject failure of courts are brief, factual and restrained. Jasmine Shah is equally forthright about unfinished tasks and unkept promises, which he regrets but does not excuse.
The charge that I lay on the shoulders of AAP is its failure to shelter victims of domestic violence by energizing the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act and covering Delhi with counselors, shelters and rehabilitation measures as well as its neglect of the interests of women employees trapped as anganwadi workers, Aashas, garbage collectors and the like.
In every future national evaluation and survey, however, it will be impossible to conceal or distort the achievements of the Delhi model. The improved educational and health outcomes achieved during the AAP decade will shine like a beacon against the far lower attainments of every neighboring State.
Renuka Viswanathan retired from the Indian Administrative Service. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.